A motherboard is a printed circuit board (PCB) that may serve as a hub for both communication and electrical power in a computer system. The motherboard may be connected to various computer components, such as a microprocessor, storage devices, video cards, and other devices. The motherboard may be connected to these components through a connector, such as an advanced technology attachment (ATA) connector or a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) card.
One of the major issues with such connectors is that the connectors take up too much space on the motherboard. To improve performance, engineers constantly try to improve the utilization of motherboards to support more devices at a higher rate of data transfer. Therefore, space on a motherboard is both limited and precious and should be optimized. When multiple connectors are used, the connectors are typically lined up side by side, occupying too much valuable space on the motherboard.